Synod delegates discuss empowering local churches

ROME (CNS) — As the Synod of Bishops on synodality engaged in conversation on the church’s hierarchy, synod delegates examined the relationship between the local and universal church during a public theological and pastoral forum.

Myriam Wijlens, a theological expert at the synod and canon law professor at the University of Erfurt in Germany, said that since the beginning of the synodal process in 2021, “the people of God have voiced with a remarkable consistency that diocesan and parish pastoral councils should be made obligatory.”

But beyond making such structures mandatory, “they desire that canonical norms make them into true vehicles of being a synodal church,” she said at the forum in Rome Oct. 16.

Currently, the Code of Canon Law states, “If the diocesan bishop judges it opportune after he has heard the presbyteral council, a pastoral council is to be established in each parish” with the council presided over by the pastor.

To respond to the desire voiced by the people of God, Wijlens said that the majority of members on such councils should not be appointed by the diocesan bishop or parish priest, rather “they need to be elected or appointed in a different way.”

Additionally, she said “provisions can be made to respond to the request that there must be a majority of laypersons, with an adequate presence of women, young people and people living in conditions of poverty or experiencing other forms of marginalization.”

Wiljens noted that just as a diocesan presbyteral council has a right to be consulted before the bishop can act in specific cases, such as altering a parish or building a new church, “a provision could be made that on certain or the same topic, the diocesan pastoral council must be heard as well.”

She added that such provisions “do not contradict current law and could already be considered in the statutes that bishops can issue within their local church today.”

Father Antonio Autiero, another synod expert and emeritus professor of moral theology at the University of Münster in Germany, discussed the possibility of making the lived experience of the faithful more central in the church’s decision-making and application of doctrine.

“The link between faith and morality cannot be conceived in a linear and deductive way,” he said. “We have done that for too long without considering the fact that human practices and the invocation of the moral good correspond to the culture with which people identify.”

“Local churches, as a place of living out the church, offer the horizon in which doctrinal aspects regarding human practices, and therefore also moral conduct and legal frameworks, can be authentically generated and then offered as points of truth for the life of other churches as well,” he said.

Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, said that “local churches are not mere parts or administrative units of a whole, nor is the universal church the sum of all of those parts as if it were a federation or a grouping together of local communities.”

Instead, “the mysterious being of the church of Christ is truly present in each and every one of its local churches, thus achieving its fundamental unity in the richness of a legitimate local diversity.”

The cardinal observed that in various parts of the world, “synodal experiences are becoming more like political assemblies rather than true synodal encounters.” Referring to the current synod on synodality, he emphasized the importance of invoking the Holy Spirit in discussions about the church’s future and “seeking the Spirit who lives among us, but to whom we must remain attentive.”

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